Start the Presses: What clicks and what doesn’t about our new web design
Earlier this month, a group of about a dozen people met at the Burbank Bar & Grille to hash out what they liked, what they didn’t, and what they’d like to see changed about the Burbank Leader.
This was the second such meeting of the Community Advisory Board this year. In August, a similar group met in Glendale to discuss the same topics regarding the News-Press.
Perhaps not surprisingly, given the papers have a single editor and generally the same staff, the laurels and brickbats were largely the same. People in both communities like — and in fact demand we keep — our hyperlocal focus. This is definitely a good thing to hear, given that’s our stated mission.
Points of disagreement, however, focused on what type of coverage was the most important. Though everyone deeply appreciated the depth and breadth of our sports coverage, those without high-school age kids wondered if it would make sense for us to spill a bit more ink on adult rec leagues or youth soccer, baseball and football.
Some wanted us to spend more time covering service clubs and society events, while others felt such articles focused on such a small percentage of the community to be of little importance.
And though our coverage of this year’s municipal elections was widely praised, Burbank readers in particular wanted to see more investigative, in-depth pieces on the human impact — good or bad — of our elected officials’ policies.
One thing that the News-Press advisory board brought up that we’ve tried to fix quickly was a legitimate complaint about our calendar section. That group said far too many items are of little interest to the larger community or were simply incorrect.
This seems like a good segue into a discussion about our new website design, which has, among other features, an improved calendar listing section. As before, people wishing to put events into our (free) online calendar section need to put it in online.
However, we’ve increased our vetting process to help ensure the information input is accurate, and we’ve banned repeating events. These weekly, or even daily, entries were cluttering up the online calendar, and greatly obscuring readers’ abilities to get an understanding of what really happening on any particular day.
In addition, many people would set these repeating events without an end date, and fail to tell us if a meeting was canceled or postponed — or even if a particular group had been disbanded. Without that rather vital information, our online and print calendars would far too often post incorrect information.
I realize repeating events still have value, but now they will only appear in print, and will be subject to far greater scrutiny. If you’d like to have your ongoing event considered for publication, please contact our administrative assistant, Denise Burdette at denise.burdette@latimes.com for more information.
In addition, here’s the link for the online calendar, which also includes our online submission form: https://bit.ly/tcn-calendar.
Note that this calendar is common for all three of our community papers: the Leader, News-Press as well as the La Cañada Valley Sun.
While we’re talking about the website, I also want to ask for feedback about what you like and what you don’t. The biggest change: The sites now exist underneath the Los Angeles Times banner.
Though I am concerned about the lack of freedom this creates with our design, our sites badly needed an upgrade — particularly for people who prefer to view via smartphones or tablets. Many features are now in different places, which may be a bit confusing, I realize, but I’m hopeful things will settle down soon.
But along those lines, if there are beloved sections or features you’re having a difficult time finding, please let me know. Don’t go complaining about the darkness; light a match.
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DAN EVANS is the editor. He can be reached at (818) 637-3234 or dan.evans@latimes.com.